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Lottery Court Case
A Canadian care worker who bought a lottery ticket that won C$11.4 million ($7.2 million) won't pocket a penny. She bought the ticket for an elderly client with whom, she said, she had a verbal agreement to share the jackpot if the ticket was a winner, but the client said she had made no such deal. The disagreement ended up in court. (Gambling, agreements, sharing, court cases, headlines, sequencing, use of superlative structure "One of the _____-est".)Intermediate

Luck of the draw
This warmer is an effective way to get students to concentrate on what they are learning.Intermediate

High on Music
Thailand has some new recruits for its war against the country's narcotics problem -- a team of convicts jailed for drug offenses have formed the country's first ever prison choir. (Talking about music and its effect on behavior, comparing things, debating.)Pre-Intermediate

Dead as a Dodo
Scientists at Oxford University have extracted DNA from a dodo, the famous flightless bird hunted to extinction in the 17th century. (DNA, endangered animals, summarizing, question words.)Advanced

A Longer Life
If you want to live to a healthy old age, head for Japan. The Japanese have the healthiest life expectancy among 191 countries in the world.
(The World Health Organization (WHO), diet, life expectancy, international rankings, adjectives, superlatives.)Intermediate

Stuck!
A man squeezed into a garbage chute in an apartment building to retrieve a favorite old sweater thrown away by his wife, but got stuck between floors... (Rescue story, apartment buildings, garbage chutes, crossword puzzle.)
Pre-Intermediate

'Drink of the Gods'
Growing health concerns about kava have thrown a spanner in South Pacific plans to turn it into a big export crop, straining already frail island economies. Vanuatu's Finance Minister, Joe Baumol Carlo, said adverse medical reports were not the fault of kava, but of the derivatives added by pharmaceutical companies. (Herbal medicines, health, natural remedies, kava, trade, business, government controls on drugs, prepositions.) Upper-Intermediate

Work Internet Stopped
Major corporations are increasingly classifying employee email and Internet privileges as potential security hazards, distractions or worse, costly legal dangers in the making. As a result, companies are considering dramatically curtailing, or even abolishing completely the freedoms, on which employees have grown increasingly reliant over the past few years. (The Internet, business, employment, personal phone calls at work, adverbs, writing a memo.)Advanced

Dogs of war
A descendant of the San Francisco attack dog that went wild and mauled a young woman to death is being advertised for sale in a local newspaper as "bad to the bone, protective and stable,". The owners of the killer dog have now been found guilty of murder. Dogs in Europe have killed an elderly woman and a young boy. Who is responsible? (Dogs, controls on dogs, verb participles used as adjectives, debate, essay writing.) WARNING: The news content in this lesson may be upsetting to some students.Upper-Intermediate Lesson Updated: 4 April 2002

Expert
An effective and fun warmer that can be used in the middle or towards the end of a lesson when students' attention might waver.Pre-Intermediate

Chew!
Can't remember life before mobiles? Chances are you'll also struggle to recall your home phone number and family birthdays, a 2007 survey found and a 2002 joint study found that chewing gum has a positive effect on cognitive tasks such as thinking and memory. Make sure your students chew gum while they do this lesson! (Chewing gum, habits, science, memory, research, adverbs, the modal verbs may, might and could.)
Intermediate

Animal Chatter
Max talks about the words we use to describe the noises animals make.Intermediate

Drummed Out
London's theater district could lose a popular musical because of local resident complaints that the show is too noisy. The show's producer first thought it was a joke. "Here we are in the middle of the West End playing a musical and they're saying it's too loud... But if anyone buys a place in the West End, they must understand they are not going to have peace, quiet and tranquillity." (Live performances, theater, conflicting rights, South Africa, London's West End, reviews, use of 'if'.)Upper-Intermediate

Wake Up, Doc!
Lack of sleep may make less-experienced doctors more likely to make mistakes, according to UK researchers. (Sleep, health, doctors, confidence, writing questions, doing a survey, using comparative sentence structures.)Intermediate

Caged In
A popular Indian film actor crammed himself into a tiny cage and asked for compassion for chickens as part of a "Compassion, Not Cages - Go Veg!" campaign by an international animal rights group. (Animal rights, vegetarians, protest, farming, 'so' linking two clauses.)Elementary to Pre-Intermediate

Coin Grab
A fun, communicative warmer that will keep you laughing.Pre-Intermediate

Four corners
This warmer is a good way of getting students moving and communicating with each other.Pre-Intermediate

Relative pronouns - What you mean
Guillermo in Spain has a student who has a lot of problems using that and what. Anna provides some advice on how to change that.
Intermediate

In Love With My Car
A survey of drivers in the U.S. found that 63 percent actually talked to their cars, 43 percent said they considered their cars to be "part of the family," and 12 percent said they valued their cars more than anything else in their lives, including their children or their home. (Cars, automobiles, possessions, surveys, comparative language using 'more than' and 'less / fewer than'.)Pre-Intermediate

Ebola
"West African nations next to those hit by the Ebola epidemic - Mali, Ivory Coast, Senegal and Guinea Bissau - should prepare for the possible arrival of travellers carrying the deadly virus. The outbreak persists especially in the forests of Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia." (Health, diseases, preventing the spread of disease, present perfect simple and present perfect continuous.)Intermediate

It's a dog's life
A plush, furnished place with televisions, a Feng Shui garden, showers, piped music and an aromatherapy unit - for homeless dogs! Funded largely from money left in a will. (Wills, leaving money to people and organizations, debate, designing an advertisement, English expressions.) Upper-Intermediate

Are you a giraffe?
This lively warmer is a nice complement to the many Instant Lessons with an animal topic. It ties in very nicely with the lesson "Shelter Pup Finds Career".Pre-Intermediate

Thief Trapped in Elevator
A thief who wanted to break into an apartment in the southern Swedish city of Malmo was rescued by police after spending 11 hours trapped in an elevator. (Crime, guessing by context, using 'because/and/however/so', using 'a/an/the'.)
Pre-Intermediate

60 Years Among Stars
This lesson is about the famous cosmologist, Stephen Hawking. (Physics, cosmology, famous people, paragraph beginnings, question tags.)
Advanced

Noun endings
A teacher from Germany asks for some help with noun endings and pronunciation.Intermediate

Shelter Pup Finds Career
A dog success story: A puppy left at a Toronto-area animal shelter last summer has risen through Canada's detector dog program to earn a job as a drug-sniffer. (Animals rescuing people stories, proverbs, word order.)
Intermediate

A Moviemakers' Paradise
New Zealand, where the Lord of the Rings films were shot, is spending millions of dollars promoting itself as a movie makers' paradise, as well as encouraging tourists to come and see where Lord of the Rings was filmed: "New Zealand is Middle Earth,'' says actor Elijah Wood, who plays Frodo. (New Zealand, movie making, movies, prepositions.)
Upper-Intermediate to Advanced

there were a?
Marie from France asks about "there" and verb agreement.Intermediate

Bah-Humbug!
A British man who went underground behind blast-proof doors and thick concrete to avoid a family Christmas emerged early. Why? Do this lesson to find out and also learn the story of another Scrooge.Intermediate

Psychologist
A warmer to work out a common problem. The problem could be an agreed upon language problem and the "psychologist" asks questions to try to guess what that problem is. Intermediate

Super Milkman!
British milkman Steve Leech, who saved a row of shops and flats by dousing a fire with 320 pints of milk, has been named "Hero Milkman of the Millennium" by the National Dairymen's Association. (Fire safety, bravery, guessing vocabulary by context, nationality words, surveys.)Pre-Intermediate

Ring's Rave Reviews
"Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'' and "The Lord of the Rings - Fellowship of the Ring," both films set in a fantasy world of magic, wizards and young heroes, have been crossing swords at the box office. Critics gave "Harry Potter" five stars. What did they give "Lord of the Rings"? (Movies, critics, movie ratings, movie vocabulary, "as...as" used to make comparisons, playing charades.)Upper-Intermediate

Have you ever seen so many photos?
An entertaining warmer to practise making questions and getting information from a classmate using the present perfect.Pre-Intermediate

Prepositions of place
A teacher working in China asks how she can help her students better use prepositions of place.Intermediate

Teen Offenders
Certain factors can help predict if a troubled teen will return to the "straight and narrow'' with treatment or continue to be an aggressive and emotionally disturbed individual, according to New Hampshire researchers. (Health, society, teenagers, vocabulary in context, correcting grammar errors.)
Upper-Intermediate